


Burn After Reading

by irisbleufic, procrastinatingbookworm



Series: Hold Fast [2]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Affection, Aftermath, Angels, Angst and Humor, Ballad 39: Tam Lin, Books, Demons, Desk Sex, Domestic, Don’t copy to another site, Epiphanies, Fallen Angels, Hands, Heaven & Hell, Historical References, M/M, Morning After, Morning Cuddles, Morning Kisses, Morning Routines, Morning Sex, New Lovers, Recovery, References to the Child Ballads, Romantic Comedy, Romantic Gestures, Teasing, Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-11-06 17:13:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17943827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irisbleufic/pseuds/irisbleufic, https://archiveofourown.org/users/procrastinatingbookworm/pseuds/procrastinatingbookworm
Summary: Crowley rounded the desk once Aziraphale had planted himself in the swivel-chair, sitting down on the edge of it so that Aziraphale’s access would be hindered. No, this couldn’t continue.Aziraphale finished tapping a stack of loose invoice-copies against his thigh, eyes questioning.“You don’t have a cat to sit on your work,” Crowley explained, regretting how pathetic that sounded, but the endearing furrow of Aziraphale’s brow was encouraging. “How’s a snake?”“I’d rather you in my lap,” Aziraphale said, cupping Crowley’s face in both hands, “but this will do.”[Bonus end-cap ficlet that immediately followsTurn In Your Arms.  There was a tiny piece of unfinished business, so we attended to it.]





	Burn After Reading

Crowley wasn’t accustomed to feeling this warm on waking, but he was too drowsy to mind.

Sleeping naked wasn’t something he did on the regular. Still, it was pleasant enough, especially since— _wait_. He blinked rapidly up at the pair of relieved, familiar eyes that were watching him, and the previous evening’s events snapped back into focus.

Aziraphale had awakened before him and was propped on one elbow, watching Crowley sleep.

“Can’t decide whether that’s creepy or sweet,” Crowley said, aiming for sarcasm. He missed.

Aziraphale didn’t respond, except to lean forward and catch Crowley’s mouth in an adoring kiss. His free hand rested against Crowley’s side, idly tracing the curve of his hip.

“You’re forward, aren’t you?” Crowley mumbled, catching Aziraphale’s hand mid-caress. He adjusted its positioning, which was the punchline to his drowsy attempt at a joke.

“I didn’t hear you complaining earlier this morning,” Aziraphale pointed out, spreading his hand wide. He grazed his thumb low across Crowley’s stomach, narrowly missing what, before too long, he wouldn’t be able to miss. “Is this all right?”

“Yes,” Crowley gasped, reaching out in turn. He probably wasn't alert enough to touch Aziraphale at the same time, but it was worth a shot.

Aziraphale swatted Crowley’s hand away, and then lightly palmed Crowley’s half-hard cock.

“Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough,” he whispered in Crowley’s ear. “You needn’t do a thing.”

“And I was supposed to get that from, I don’t know, what?” Crowley panted, squirming with his eyes shut tight. Overwhelming enough to be regarded with such devotion, let alone touched.

“Your flat’s too bright, and you can’t read my mind,” Aziraphale teased, stroking him tenderly. “However shall we manage?”

Crowley’s skin already felt too tight, and he suspected he’d begun to break out in a sweat.

“Nnn,” he managed, biting his lip to keep quiet. “Don’t know, don’t care, as long as you…”

“As long as I what?” Aziraphale asked, putting the softness of his manicured fingertips to exquisite use. “Do you want something else?”

Crowley forced his hand between them with determination, finding Aziraphale in more or less the same condition that he was. He sighed when Aziraphale’s strokes faltered.

“Just you,” Crowley admitted, kissing the corner of Aziraphale’s mouth. “I could always try—”

Aziraphale, two steps ahead of him, rested his hands on Crowley’s shoulders and pushed him flat on the bed. He shifted down the length of his body to take Crowley’s cock in his mouth.

“Oh God,” Crowley groaned, twining his fingers thoughtlessly in Aziraphale’s hair. “Show-off.”

Aziraphale did something with his tongue up the underside of Crowley’s erection that made further speech a non-issue. He was gasping for breath as if he actually needed it.

“You, ah,” Crowley whimpered, tightening his grasp in Aziraphale’s damp hair, “should maybe—”

Aziraphale swallowed, the motion forcing his tongue to glide over a particularly sensitive spot.

Too late for the warning Crowley had been trying to give, what when he was already coming. He shuddered all the harder when Aziraphale swallowed again, this time intentionally.

“Was that, er,” Aziraphale began, bracing himself on one elbow, swiping the back of his free hand absently across his mouth, “passable?”

“Are you joking?” Crowley wheezed. Evidently, his lungs hadn’t yet remembered that they didn’t need oxygen so much as they _wanted_ it. “That was, um. Lovely?”

Was that a word you were supposed to use for this sort of thing, even assuming it was accurate?

Evidently, Aziraphale thought so, because he’d crawled back up to settle against Crowley and was kissing him like their existence depended on it. He bit Crowley’s lower lip, stifling a moan as he jerked his hips against Crowley’s. Was he closer than he’d let on?

“Budge over,” Crowley mumbled, pushing at Aziraphale’s shoulders until he got the message and rolled onto his back. Sprawling over Aziraphale was a kind of decadence he’d only dreamed of, so he tucked a grateful kiss beneath Aziraphale’s ear. “Ready?”

“Well past it,” Aziraphale replied, words cut short on a gasp as Crowley kissed down his chest.

Aziraphale’s skin had a clean, warm taste that piqued Crowley’s curiosity to perfection. He licked across Aziraphale’s belly until Aziraphale stifled what might have been laughter, and then closed his lips decisively around the head of Aziraphale’s cock.

“Oh, my dear boy,” Aziraphale whispered, cradling the back of Crowley’s head in both hands.

 _Love you so much, angel,_ Crowley thought, imitating what Aziraphale had done with his tongue, and then some. Satisfying, to turn an old proficiency toward innovation.

Aziraphale came as quickly as Crowley had a few minutes before. He earnestly whimpered Crowley’s name as he trembled through it, threading his fingers in Crowley’s hair.

The suddenness shouldn’t have caught Crowley off-guard, but he coughed before remembering he was up to this. He recovered himself, and then rested his head against Aziraphale’s hip.

Aziraphale touched his cheek with a reverence Crowley previously would’ve found unthinkable.

“Please come here,” he murmured, sounding faint, so Crowley crawled up to settle beside him.

Crowley started to babble. “Doubt I’ll ever be able to do that often enough to show how much...” 

“I know, my love,” Aziraphale said, tilting Crowley’s head down to kiss his forehead. “I do.”

If that was going to be joining the rota of Aziraphale’s endearments for him, then Crowley was a goner. He melted so thoroughly against Aziraphale’s chest as to seep in.

The moment lasted just long enough to be interrupted by the growl of Aziraphale’s stomach.

“Gluttony so close on the heels of Lust?” Crowley asked, completely besotted. “ _Really_?”

Aziraphale kissed the tip of Crowley’s nose and chuckled softly when Crowley blinked in shock. 

“You old serpent.” He ran his palm down Crowley’s side. “As enjoyable as this is, we should get up. I’ve dreadfully neglected my shop in the past few days.”

Crowley watched the shadow of memory pass over Aziraphale’s face. His own memories of the previous night were terrifying enough; he couldn’t even _imagine_...

Crowley covered Aziraphale’s hand where it rested against his hip and drew it up to his mouth, kissing his knuckles. As his lips rasped over dry skin, Crowley smirked. 

“Neglected your manicure, too, looks like. That’s worse than me if I haven’t shed in a while.”

Crowley couldn’t object to the process of getting up, dressing, and leaving the bedroom, not when Aziraphale kissed him soundly every few steps. He brushed his fingertips over Crowley’s exposed skin whenever he could manage it.

“Scones?” asked Aziraphale, when they finally made it down to Crowley’s pristine kitchen.

“Surprise me,” Crowley answered, nuzzling into Aziraphale’s shoulder.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Aziraphale assemble a tea tray with a gesture.

They ate quietly on the sofa, but with no shortage of fond eye contact. Aziraphale seemed to be intentionally seeking touch at every opportunity; Crowley certainly was. Maybe they’d always been like that, and he only now had a reason to notice.

At Aziraphale’s continued insistence, Crowley drove them to the bookshop. The bickered the whole way over whether or not the scones had been too dry, but there was an ever-present air of relief behind their words. That Crowley was even there _to_ bicker was cause enough.

Despite everything, against daunting odds, they'd survived. They’d come out victorious, even—together, which was right where they wanted to be.

Aziraphale flipped the bookshop’s window sign to _OPEN_ as he walked in. Crowley followed, staying close enough to feel the warmth of him. He wondered how humans could even concentrate on day-to-day banalities when a new relationship was in play. Maybe they couldn’t.

Then again, was it truly new? Had it not been over six thousand years of drawing ever closer, of unselfconscious drunken touches and casual sober contact? Crowley had thought nothing of nudging Aziraphale to make a point from day one, so he supposed it was inevitable.

Crowley remembered encountering Aziraphale at that gentlemen’s club in Portland Place, where he’d been dancing with a man who wore a green carnation in his lapel. Aziraphale hadn’t even cared who was watching, or what they might’ve thought of him.

He remembered how dashing Aziraphale had looked, how graceful, the cut of his suit and his dancing out-of-fashion or not.

Even in the dusty light of the bookshop, puttering about his desk and organizing papers in a way that didn’t seem like it would make sense even to him, Aziraphale was immeasurably lovely.

Crowley rounded the desk once Aziraphale had planted himself in the swivel-chair, sitting down on the edge of it so that Aziraphale’s access would be hindered. No, this couldn’t continue.

Aziraphale finished tapping a stack of loose invoice-copies against his thigh, eyes questioning.

“You don’t have a cat to sit on your work,” Crowley explained, regretting how pathetic that sounded, but the endearing furrow of Aziraphale’s brow was encouraging. “How’s a snake?”

“I’d rather you in my lap,” Aziraphale said, cupping Crowley’s face in both hands, “but this will do.”

Crowley scooted forward a little, spreading his legs in spite of how insistently his cheeks heated. If there had ever been a time to admit to himself he’d had untoward thoughts involving Aziraphale’s desk, it was now. From the look of things, he wasn’t alone in the notion.

Aziraphale removed his hands from Crowley’s face and set them on his thighs, asking silent permission. That was somehow even more attractive than the mere fact of his desire.

“Let’s just assume for convenience’s sake,” Crowley managed, “that anything’s fair game.”

There was a faint _thwip_ behind them as the window-sign flipped from _OPEN_ to _CLOSED_ —Aziraphale’s doing. Crowley hadn’t even thought about it. 

“I’m quite afraid,” Aziraphale said, tugging Crowley forward by the hips, not sounding frightened in the _least_ , “that I can’t get enough of you.”

“Fortunately,” Crowley said, wrapping his arms around Aziraphale’s neck, “I’m a renewable resource.” He pondered this for a second. “No wonder I couldn’t hack it Downstairs.”

Aziraphale kissed him, already starting on Crowley’s shirt buttons. It was dizzying, maddeningly slow, and all the more ardent for that fact. He gasped approvingly at the leisurely slide of Crowley’s tongue, biting gently at Crowley’s lower lip.

Shivering at the skim of Aziraphale’s hands down his chest, Crowley shifted his right hand to the desk for better balance. When it landed again, his palm met with a rasping texture that delivered sheer, searing agony. He yelped, yanking his hand into his lap.

Aziraphale jolted backward, landing rather hard in his desk chair. “Have I hurt you, my dear?”

“No, but this—” Crowley glanced down at the half-unrolled parchment that sat alongside his thigh, squinting at the suspiciously-looping script “—whatever it is, _did_.”

Aziraphale looked like he might smite the document for having caused a disruption, but he paused, leaning forward. His lips moved as he read, and his eyebrows drew together. 

“They didn’t mention _this_ ,” he blurted, bewildered. “Probably because Uriel refused to read out the entirety. Not that I blame her. Gabriel’s handwriting is atrocious.”

Crowley knew Aziraphale well enough to tell when he was deflecting in order to protect him.

“Would you mind sharing with the class?” he asked, unable to contain a surge of anxiety.

“I believe I’ve been fired,” Aziraphale said mildly. “This bit near the end says that, in coming to your aid, I’ve effectively proved myself a traitor to the cause.”

“This is why you get fired?” Crowley asked incredulously. “Not your Pride, Gluttony, Lust, or even your defiance of direct orders? Saving someone. _That’s_ what it takes?”

For a moment, Crowley caught a glimpse of what Aziraphale must once have been—dauntless and vengeful, eyes bright with rage. Crowley had seen the War, he’d seen Heavenly retribution, but never like this. This was a supernova scarcely contained, the potential for consummate, ruthless calamity if Aziraphale chose to bring his fury to bear. 

“If I hadn’t already established seven years ago that I couldn’t give less of a _fuck_ what Heaven wants,” Aziraphale said, his voice taut with an emotion that Crowley couldn’t name, “I’m _quite_ glad to have finally made my point clear.” 

He gestured curtly at the scroll on the desk. It burst into flames, crumbling to ash without even scorching the wood or the remainder of his perpetual, flammable mess.

“That’s so hot,” Crowley said after a moment of stunned silence. “A bit scary, but, uh. Hot.”

Aziraphale caught Crowley’s right hand and turned it over, healing the blisters with a brush of his thumb across the palm. His eyes were still alight, quite literally glowing from within. The anger had faded, but the fierce care that took its place was no less intense.

“Are you quite finished making puns about how I’ve chosen to deal with Heaven’s red tape?”

“I only made the one,” Crowley protested. “I meant it, too. The whole angelic rage thing is…attractive, I mean as long as it’s in my favor rather than against it.”

“You’ll always have my favor,” Aziraphale promised, picking at Crowley’s shirt buttons again.

Too overwhelmed to do anything about the stinging in his eyes, Crowley reached for Aziraphale’s collar and loosened his infuriating, tasteless bowtie. He couldn’t stop smiling.


End file.
